Flashbang
by Francis Eugene
Summary: Xander remembers someone, after Chosen


**Title:** Flash-bang 

**Summary:** Xander remembers his losses after Chosen.

**Spoilers:** BtVS:Chosen, AtS:Home

**Rating:** Minor language

**Disclaimer:** Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and all other copyright holders, own the rights to their respective works and characters. I receive no compensation for this work, nor is there any intent to deprive the owners of their rightful due.

* * *

Life sucks and then you die. That's what they tell you, whoever the they are. I think now that Life must have been a vampire. 

I'm sitting here in some self-advertised "pub", outside of San Francisco, drinking myself cross-eyed--if I'd had two eyes to cross, upholding the Harris tradition in grand style. It's expected. Who am I to deny tradition?

Earlier this evening there were lots of people around, but now they've all gone. Gone to see the fireworks over at the race track just across the railroad tracks from here. Gone, gone along with all the new slayers that are still with this traveling freak show.

I can hear the fireworks going off. The deep, crunching krumpf as they're launched into the air, the loud pops, cracks and whistles as they explode. I can't see them, but I can hear them. I can almost smell them too, with the flinty odor of black powder and burnt embers.

July Fourth, once my favorite holiday.

Me and Jesse and Willow would go to the fairgrounds every summer and eat ourselves sick on fried bread, gooey ice cream, and sticky cotton candy. We'd go on all the rides, even though the Octopus would always make me even sicker. Then we'd play the midway games and lose all the rest of our money. Somehow Willow always seemed to have more, and she would buy us sugary goodness before we wandered over to the field and wait for the sky to darken and the show to begin.

The show itself was always beautiful, bright and loud and over way too soon. Willow liked the ones that would change colors and whistle on the way down. Jesse liked the huge colored balls. Me, I liked the flash-bangs. I don't know if that's what they're really called, but that's what I call them. They're the simple ones, the ones that just make a blinding white flash and a bang so loud it would shove your stomach from one side to the other. The finale was especially good when a whole string of them got fired off, mixed in with the colored ones, and it nearly knocked you off your feet if you were standing, or roll you over if you were lying down. We'd walk away with orange spots in our eyes and ears ringing. Good times.

Weren't the other holidays any good, you ask? New Years Day? That one was at least tolerable because my parents were getting drunk somewhere else for a change. But Jesse and Willow were always with family, so not so great after all. Christmas? It sounds quaint, but sleeping out in the backyard is really not that much fun, especially since it rained half the time (it snowed once!). Thanksgiving? Lots of food, sure, but lots of fights too. Not a whole lot of fun. Valentines day? Let's not even go there.

But July Fourth had always good. Emphasis on the past tense.

Today I found out that Cordy is in a coma. Andrew had been in contact with the guys in LA. No details, just that they didn't know when she would recover. Somehow I had the feeling it was a matter of 'if' and not 'when'. I raise my glass in a toast to Cordy. Despite my doubts I really do hope she gets better soon. I should go see her sometime, but I probably never will.

I'm really learning to hate Andrew. I know I shouldn't blame the messenger, but when the messenger is always delivering bad news I just want to slug him, make him hurt as badly as he's hurting me. And the way he had tittered when we passed Gilroy, telling us all about his and Spike's big adventure. And he tittered again when we passed the exits for Sunnyvale.

Schmuck.

We'd all felt it. A need, intense, burning, just to get away, to get as far from that place as we could make the bus go. The most critically wounded we left in a hospital in Santa Barbara. Faith stayed to watch over Robin; they'll be rejoining us soon. But the rest of us kept that bus going, pedal to the metal, straight up 101.

The bus finally gave out in some suburban sprawl of a town called San Mateo. We've been here for awhile now, but soon we'll all be splitting up. A lot of the girls have been antsy about going home and Giles and Buffy are finally letting them go. Giles has started making arrangements to move back to England. He wants Buffy and Willow to come with him and help get the council started again. I suppose by extension that also includes Dawn and me, but I'm not sure if that really includes me. Even if I was, I'm not sure I want to be around all the reminders.

I guess everyone should be good at something. Why does my forte have to be fucking up relationships?

Today is a reminder.

July Fourth had been the one holiday that still remained good...until I remembered Anya's words when I found out her "real" name.

_"Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, twenty years old. Born on the Fourth of July, and don't think there weren't jokes about that my whole life, mister, 'cause there were. 'Who's our little patriot?' they'd say, when I was younger, and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now."_

That council goon had me scared half to death, but it was all I could do to keep from busting a gut right then and there. Where in her beautifully bent and wonderfully warped world-view had she come up with that name? I can still hear her voice saying 'Who's our little patriot?' I laugh a little when I hear it, only the laughter is also painful now.

She was right about one thing. I never will meet anyone like her.

Outside I can hear the pace of the explosions increasing. They must be into the finale now. Good, I can tell they're not scrimping on the flash-bangs, I can feel them in my gut.

It's time for another toast and I raise my glass of warm Corona again, my hand trembling slightly.

_Who's my little patriot?_

I can barely whisper the answer aloud. "You are, Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins."

And I know this is going to be last July Fourth celebration I'm ever going to be around. Just another fucking holiday to try and forget. I can't stand the reminder.


End file.
